Las Vegas (NV) - The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project has received a big boost from Advanced Micro Devices. Company employees recently pooled their own money together and bought hundreds of the inexpensive XO laptops for third world countries under the OLPC’s donate one laptop, get one free.

The XO computer is a water and dust-resistant notebook computer destined for rural environments. It has a hand-crank power generator and the computers form a wireless mesh network.

AMD reps told use many employees chose to donate both laptops and that the company matched employee contributions by giving an additional $30,000 to the project. So far the XO computers have gone to extremely poor countries - countries that cannot even afford the low $200 cost per laptop. However, very generous people can donate laptops to a country of their own choice by donating a minimum of 100 computers under the OLPC’s "Give Many, Send Anywhere" program.

AMD makes the Geode low-power CPU inside the XO laptop.